Episode 15: Skirmishes in the Surveillance Wars

In this surveillance-heavy episode, Professors Chesney and Vladeck dig into a raft of news about foreign-intelligence collection authorities. They open with an overview of how Section 702 collection authority works, and then unpack the recent news that NSA is dropping the “about” collection component of Upstream collection under 702. They explain it all, including the obvious and perhaps not-so-obvious reasons for this development. This leads them next to the ODNI’s 2016 Transparency Report, which just dropped and provides a host of fascinating data points about not only 702 but an array of other surveillance/collection authorities. Stay tuned to here them try to convince you that 150 million is not actually a big number! As your reward, you’ll then get a breakdown of an array of recent and looming Supreme Court developments (cell-site data, anyone?), and a wrap-up segment that only Val Kilmer could love.